1. Field of the Invention
The invention pertains to devices and methods for conditioning hay.
Hay comprises various plants, such as alfalfa, clover, and the like, which are mown and dried for use as animal feed. The hay is conditioned by processing, usually during mowing, to improve its drying characteristics and desirability as feed. Hay produced from leaf crops, such as alfalfa, is conditioned to crack the hard stems so that they dry at the same rate as the softer leaves.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The most common method of conditioning hay is through the use of a pair of conditioning rollers, usually added to a mower to produce a machine which simultaneously cuts and conditions hay, customarily called a "mower-conditioner," if towed by a tractor, or a "windrower" if self-propelled. In this specification, "hay-cutting machine" will be used to mean mower-conditioner, windrowers, or the like. The cut hay passes between the rollers (FIG. 2), which crush the crop stem, permitting escape of moisture from inside the stem and promoting drying. The force or "tension" urging the rollers together is set to accomplish the degree of crushing desired. This presents the problem that the crop may be over-crushed, damaging the leaves, or under-crushed, and thus not conditioned enough.
An improvement upon the conditioning roller is the crimping roller. In a crimping roller system (FIG. 3) the rollers have ribs which crimp the long plant stems at intervals, while leaves pass between the rollers relatively untouched. The ribs extend longitudinally along the length of the rollers, and may be arranged as straight teeth, or in a spiral arrangement. The preferred design is the Chevron Mesh used on Sperry-New Holland Haybine.TM. conditioners (illustrated in FIG. 3), which has a multiple spiral arrangement in which the ribs form chevrons. The pattern on each roller are oppositely disposed, so that the ribs may intermesh.
Although the ribs of the crimper rollers are a major improvement over the pure conditioning rollers, they still present problems for the farmer. Extremely thick or wet hay often does not feed into the rollers properly and can plug and jam the machine. The same adjustment problems may appear--if the tension on rollers is great enough to thoroughly crimp the stems, the leaves may be stressed too much. If this occurs, the leaves, when dry, will shatter and be lost during further processing. This problem is particularly acute in machines in which the cutting width exceeds the width of the rollers. The large ribs crimp the stems at relatively large intervals, so that the crimping is not as efficient as might be wished.
It is thus an object of the invention to provide a hay cutting machine which effectively conditions the mown hay by crimping the plants more thoroughly than existing machines.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a hay cutting machine which conditions hay with less damage to the hay than produced by current designs.
It is a still further object to provide a hay cutting machine which is less prone to plugging than others presently available.